No such thing as far as I recall, but there are PCI cards that also give you an internal firewire connection, like this one.
I doubt that you will use the firewire connection though, so I'd say to skip it.

Trying to run a 400 Mbit/s bus through a 115 Kbit/s one? I'm not sure that's a solid idea.


I'd guess that was the case, yes.

Yup, get a USB/Firewire controller card with internal ports (I'm pretty sure you should be able to find a single card that does both, else you'll need one PCI card for each, but given that you have no use for Firewire, it's probably not worth the cost), from what I've read here, this seems to be your only option.

Oh well, dead ports it is then.

Lesson learned. Match case to motherboard.

Thanks to all again.

And again sorry for the ignorance, guess it was getting annoying judging by that last post, I am sorry.

Try and make this my next to last post in this thread. THANKS AGAIN TO EVERYONE!

In my experience... People will allways learn new things. And the best way to learn is to try. So this is no ignorance mate ;)

Any updates OFG? Or further problems?

First of all, and FOREMOST.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to all who helped me in this thread and with this endeavor.

Second, my apologies, but real life interupted this project in a bad way, and it was setting untouched for quite some time, and that's why I haven't been sharing any news. Sorry.

However, things are improving (including my health now) and....

I FINISHED IT!!!!!

Or, at least, I think I think I finished it. Still haven't turned it on yet. Just wanted to share with you guys that I finished the project. Or think I have. Actually, that's the real reason i'm posting, lol, it's cause I've got two final little..... questions.... or problems.... or, most likely, nothing. I think I'm probably done, but wanted verification.

Two things:

ONE: I've got a Western Digital, 1TB, 7200RPM, 64MB Cache, SATA III hard drive (as my second hard drive, my main hard drive is an SSD). Well, during the down time, I've apparently forgotten where I put the manual, or, to be honest, if it even came with a manual, and so I can't seem to find the answer myself. But I hooked up SATA power to it, and I hooked up SATA data to it. But there's still a male, looks like 6 or 8 pin something back there, and I have no clue what it's for. Is there some other hookup required or is that (I'm hoping) for something like a different kind of power or something???

TWO: The motherboard or case (cant remember now, damn layoff and my bad memory, sorry) came with a "speaker." I only even know what it is because in the Newegg video tutorial he also used one of those to be able to hear the beeps when powered it on outside the case the first time. Well, I don't understand if that's the way you get the beeps, there was no instruction, there is no readily apparent place, and I have no clue where it plug into. Is this something optional??? Will I no longer have motherboard beeps without one?? If so, that seems important, as I thought the beeps were sometimes sent in a pattern that gave a message as to a particular problem. Yet the motherboard manual doesnt mention it, I can't find any port on the motherboard for "speaker" or anything.

Those are the LAST TWO little issues. Otherwise, it is 100% done. EVERYTHING is in. EVERYTHING is wired. And all wires were double and triple checked. And probably even quadruple checked.

I think I'm ready, but I may not pull the trigger till this evening. My son may be coming over tonight for a visit, and if so, it would be cool to share that moment with him. MY FIRST EVER SELF BUILD AND FIRST EVER POWER ON!!!

THANK YOU AGAIN EVERYONE. I never would've believed I could've done it without you guys. And I am working on coming up with a way to take some pics so you can see my mess...errr work. lol

THANKS AGAIN.

Hey, congrats! I was just a couple minutes ago wondering f you got your build together.

You sure it's not 4 pins (relatively wide)? If so, that's just another type of power connector (molex). So no worries.

It's not a 'must have', although as you noted, it will beep a specific code if there's an issue. Usually the connection for it is in the same area as the pins for power on/restart, HDD LED, etc (i.e. where all the front panel studd connects).

SPECS:

Case: Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced Blue Edition

Motherboard: ECS Golden Z77H2-AX(1.0) LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

CPU: Intel i7-3770k

Memory: 32GB GeIL 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) NOTE*: This is another area I overspent on. I thought 32 GB would future proof it, but I've been told that there's really almost no way any more than 16GB will be required in at least the mid term future. So I could've save $129 here)

HDD1: SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC256B/WW 2.5" 256 GB SATA III MIL Internal SSD

HDD2: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

Optical 1: Lite-on Blue Ray Reader/Writer

Optical 2: LG Blue Ray Reader, DVD burner combo

Optical 3: Asus DVD burner NOTE: Was only going to be 2 at first (numbers 2 and 3 above) but then a deal came up for the Lite-on Blue Ray Reader/Writer that was cheaper than my LG Blue Ray Reader only!!! So I got it! lol

Video: EVGA GeForce GTX 560ti 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express X 2 running in SLI mode

PSU: Corsair Professional Series Gold AX850, 850W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12 V v 2.92 80 Plus Gold Certified

OS: Windows 7 Professional, 64 bit edition.

Assuming you are asking about the "connector" that is shown in the third picture in this page, that is not a connector. That is the so called "jumper settings" which control some more complicated settings about the drive.
If you take a look at the 2nd picture, and enlarge it, it says "Factory Jumper Settings" and has 2 rows of 4 numbers in it, and a bit to the left says That is what the jumpers control. You shouldn't need to change anything with them.

As for the speaker, it should be in the same area as the PWR/RST/HDD Led etc of your motherboard, if I recall correctly it should be about 4 or 5 pins wide, though it is possible that some pins are not used.

Enjoy your computer :)

THANK YOU. Yeah, that's what I was talking about regarding the hard drive. Ugh, I hope I won't have to change jumper settings, cause they're all bare now and I can't find the damn box (assuming it had jumpers in it). I've actually changed jumpers like that before, but didn't recognize this as one because they are all empty. But in my old IDE setup, my two optical drives were running off the same port, so one was master and one was slave, and I had to change jumper settings when I bought new drives for that old computer recently so that one was master and one was slave.

As for the speaker thing, there is NOTHING left, or right, or above, or below where those things plugged in. They were all together, and it was labelled front panel, and that's where I had to hook up the Power Switch, Power LED, Hard Drive LED, and Reset. And with all of those there, there aren't any other open connectors.

The only thing that looks close is the SPDIF out, but from a casual glance it looks like that has more pins than the speaker has holes. Is it possible that's where I should plug the speaker into?? Is it possible it has a "built in" speaker???

The SPDIF is a different beast altogether, once again something you probably won't use. As for jumper settings, the master/slave/cable select is a thing of PATA drives that Sata drives no longer need. So don't worry about that either.
As for the speaker, it seems that your motherboard doesn't have one, and if it needs to report a POST error, it will show it on the led panel it has, though no idea how you are supposed to read it. Don't worry though, doubt you'll miss the speaker.

Congratulations. Enjoy your new PC, I hope everything works well. You'll love the sense of achievement if it does.

Also, since you had your concerns regarding the CPU cooler, do remember to check the temperature with SpeedFan, Core Temp or some such. The i7-3770K has a Tjmax temperature of 105°C, which means that's when the CPU shuts down the whole computer to prevent damage. I'm guessing your CPU temperature will probably float somewhere around the 40°C mark when there's nothing particularly intensive going on (for comparison, I've got an i5 2500K with a bigger cooler, so my idle temps are around 30°C), although it can be more or less depending on ambient temperature, overall airflow, how well and how long ago the thermal paste was applied and so on. Intensive load will naturally raise the temperature somewhat, but you won't go anywhere near 105°C without overclocking unless something is wrong.

3 optical drives? Crikey...

Well, my son didn't come over last evening, and I'm still sick, and, well, I didn't turn it on last night.

And, been busy all day today, and now am back home, and.....

Well, it needs to be said. No good avoiding it any longer. I need to just say it.

I'm scared to turn it on.

Yep. That's the awful truth. My familty got together and purchase me a $3,000 computer in Dec 2010 because for some unknown and illogical reason they love me, and because it's computer gaming that gets me through the days usually, they did that.

Then in Dec 2011, I shipped it back for warranty work. And it get damaged by UPS enroute. And even though I purchased "insurance" when I shipped it, to date, almost six months later, I've received NOTHING in compensation. Or even the wrecked computer back.

So, my family generously offered to do it again, and this time I decided to build it myself to save some $$$ (and it did save $$$$, I have no doubt after customizing this same or similar builds at other sites).

So, with all of that in mind, if I were to turn it on, and it fry the motherboard, taking two or three of the most expensive components with it, well...... I can't put into words how I wouldn't be able to live with that.

So, what I'm going to do tonight, rather than turn it on, is open it back up, and check all the wiring AGAIN. One wire at a time.

And if you don't hear any more from me regarding this, then you'll know I haven't yet gotten the courage to turn it on. I know that's crazy, and I'm sorry, but I'm just crazy I guess. It scares the living shit out of me.

When I finally do turn it on though, I will post the result here. Good or bad. All of you guys have soooooooooo helpful and uplifting and coached me through this and it's only fair I share the final result when that happens.

Just don't expect it tonight. lol. Or perhaps tomorrow. lol

Yes, as I've said before, I'm a moran. lol

While back in the Pentium 1 days you could fry a motherboard by connecting the power cables wrong, these days the wiring connections are pretty much idiot-proof to prevent any wrong connections from causing damage (basically the connectors are designed so that it's impossible to plug a wire in somewhere where it will be delivering more current or voltage than whatever it's connected to can handle). The absolute worst that can happen from not connecting things right is simply that things don't turn on (due to being unpowered/underpowered). That said, do check that there aren't any lose metal pieces (screws, stand-offs, washers, etc) that got dropped onto the motherboard, as those can potentially cause shorts that are capable of causing damage.

Also, don't wait too long, as some components have relatively short RMA periods from most retailers (most notably CPUs), so if it turns out that one of these components was DOA you don't want to find that out after the RMA period has expired.